Check emails from other accounts using Gmail

If you have multiple email accounts, you can check them all in Gmail. Gmail’s Mail Fetcher feature first imports all your old messages to Gmail and then continues to bring in new messages sent to your other account. You can add up to 5 accounts, including Gmail and other email providers.

Label incoming messages - Check the box if you’d like to easily see which emails in your inbox came from this account.

Archive incoming messages - Leave unchecked. Only check if you don’t want to see new messages from the other account in your inbox.

Click Add Account. If you get an error message while getting set up, click the Show error details link to find out more about what’s not working.

Once your account has been added successfully, you'll be asked if you want to be able to send mail as this address. This lets you compose messages in Gmail, but have them appear to be sent from your other email account.

Gmail will check your other account for new emails periodically. You can see when the other account was last checked from the Accounts and Import tab in Settings.

If you only want to import old emails, you can stop importing mail after your old messages have been imported. See directions below.

If you’re importing from another email provider, your other email provider has to offer POP3 access. Go ahead and try the steps below, but if you get an error you may want to visit your other email provider’s help center to see if they support POP3. You can also try other ways to move emails to Gmail.

Open your Gmail account.

Click the gear in the top right.

Select Settings.

Select the Accounts and Import tab.

In the Check mail from other accounts (using POP3) section, click Add a POP3 mail account you own.

Enter the full email address of the other account, then click Next Step.

Enter your password.

Now you have a few options to choose from. Here’s our recommended settings:

Leave a copy of retrieved messages on the server - Check the box. Otherwise the emails in your other account will be deleted and you’ll only be able to access them in Gmail. Learn more.

Always use a secure connection (SSL) when retrieving mail - Keep checked. For some accounts, you may need to uncheck this option. Learn more.

Label incoming messages - Check the box if you’d like to easily see which emails in your inbox came from this account.

Archive incoming messages - Don’t check. Only check if you don’t want to see new messages from the other account in your inbox.

Click Add Account. If you get an error message while getting set up, click the Show error details link to find out more about what’s not working.

If you get a message saying that POP is disabled, go to the settings page of your other email account and look for a way to enable POP.

Once your account has been added successfully, you'll be asked if you want to be able to send mail as this address. This lets you compose messages in Gmail, but have them appear to be sent from your other email account.

Gmail will check your other account for new emails periodically. You can see when the other account was last checked from the Accounts and Import tab in Settings.

Troubleshooting

Stop importing emails

If you don’t want to get emails from your other account in Gmail anymore, follow these directions:

Open the Gmail account that you’ve been importing mail to.

Click the gear in the top right.

Select Settings.

Select the Accounts and Import tab.

Find the Check mail from other accounts (using POP3) section.

Click delete next to the account you want to stop getting emails from.

Keep in mind that any emails that you previously received will remain in Gmail until you delete them.

Still receiving new emails? A few messages may still come in after turning off Mail Fetcher. But if you’re still getting new messages after a few hours, your other account might be forwarding your emails instead. Check your other account to see if automatic forwarding is set up and follow the other email provider’s instructions on how to turn it off.

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Vivian is a Gmail expert and the author of this help page. Leave her feedback about this help page.